Advantages: Plenty of options, able to import many formats, straight forward use
Disadvantages: Not cheap, can install slow on older machines

...Having used InDesign since version 1, it is fare to say that with every release Adobe have improved and enhanced this product. InDesign is a good competitor to the industry standard DTP package Quark, plus, thanks to CS2 and CS3, it is a good competitor to both Microsoft Publisher - and Word. Primarily this is a publishing and design package, allowing you to create the layout for books, magazines, leaflets, etc. Not to mention CD/DVD covers, cases and inlays, plus calenders, certificates, brochures. Bundled with Adobe Bridge, you have easy access to stock photography (excellent when you need a photo of a someone eating a cake) plus plenty of templates to get you going with you next design assignment. The most predominant difference between CS2 and CS3 is the layout of the software. The layout of the user interface is in... Read review

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Advantages: Plenty of new options and great value for money.
Disadvantages: Confusing to install.

...I find the new CS3 runs quite slow if left on for a while on my operating system which is OSX. There are plenty of reasons why it would be a good buy, these include quick opening times, plenty of new options to create quality work and even though it is expensive i have found it good value for money because of the amount of packages you get within it. It all seems to of had a lot more time spent on the design process compared to previous models. The one problem i have with it, is when you are installing the programmes they have made the keycode different. You have to drop the box into the programme then it takes a few minutes to work. Because of this long pause i thought mine did not work properly. This is not explained clearly and that is my only major concern over the whole package.... Read review

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Advantages: less processor memary than photoshop
Disadvantages: There are never enough features!

...This software graphics product is one of the best alternatives to Adobe Photoshop CS3/ CS2. It has a similar layout and design if you are familiar with photoshop. There are many drawing features that this product has such as vector drawing, exporting images, normal shape and paintbrush tools. The product also comes equipped with features used to enhance photos by adjusting features such as brightness, contrast, grayscale, removal of red eyes etc. It also has some nice graphic based tools such as artistic effects / 3d effects / texture based tools. As with other similar products it supports the use of layers in images, swatches, transparent backgrounds, picture tubes and has a nice feature that removes backgrounds from image files. It is probably easier to use than photoshop and a great choice at a reasonable price.... Read review

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Advantages: Easier to use and reliable
Disadvantages: Longer startup time than others

...I guess Adobe Indesign is one of the best software in its category. It enhance your creativity with its simple and easy-to-understand task bar. For all of you whom are on studies and loves to keep all your notes in pdf format, this software could be your choice. My expriences, i can produce more notes and easily reedit sentences, or even images which I placed in less time than using Microsoft Word. In Word, it's quite difficult to edit any image and all the sentences but not with this Adobe best creation. In Word if you try to edit only one of the sentences, it may affects others.And if you try to edit others affected sentences, i think it could deterioting the whole document. For a simple user I think , it okay using Word. But if you are a person whom often placing images or graphic in your word documents, better consider to use... Read review

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Advantages: High Quality High Value
Disadvantages: Poor Battery No Frills

...Adobe CS3 anytime soon but Microsoft Office will run and so will other less demmanding programs. Even some older games will run but you wont be through the roof with the frame rates either. The saying " you gets what you pay for" springs to mind. Not bad and great value for the price point. SCREEN The screen is good and you cant fault it for the price. Its pretty good, for thoose who are wondering its 15.4 inches which is about right. Its rather clear and sharp but again wont win awards. EXTRAS Not much but everything you'd expect on a basic laptop but it has most of the ports you'd need and wifi so no annoing cards or sticks needed. CONCLUSION If you want a first laptop or a simple one as your first computer this is it and would do everything required for university and most jobs. Quite nippy to be honest so my personal opinion... Read review

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Advantages: Great graphics, Fast with great processor
Disadvantages: No memory card reader

...I bought this product for school work as i entered the sixth form, however on the side i really did need a good laptop as i do a lot of photo editing and web building using incredibley demanding pieces of software like Adobe CS3. I had a small budget of about £400, and was wanted the most for my money. The laptop has surprisingly good spec with a core2duo processor and 256mg ATI radeon graphics card this laptop has much better spec than others in its price range, i have had dht elaptop about 6 months and had one major problem when my bios battery had to be replaced due to a factory error only effecting mine, however the laptop went away for only 1 week a short time considering it went all the way to germany. It ispretty damn quick this laptop and is prbably the best in a price range of at least up to £500. Its a shame it has no memory... Read review

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Advantages: Great price compared to others, vast amount of tools, seemless editing
Disadvantages: Adds noise involuntarily

...Fireworks. I would even say that it is on par with Photoshop because I prefer the overall user friendly 'feel' of this program, but since there are only few video tutorials on the net compared to the vast amount made by people for Photoshop, it is quite hard to learn all the tricks of the trade. I would still recommend this program over any other because Photoshop CS3 costs over £500 according to the website, and there do not appear to be adequate reasons to spend that much more money on a program that some thing that costs £20-40 can do just as well.... Read review

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Advantages: Pretty Damn Good in Every way
Disadvantages: Not much of significance

...backlit and much better than some plasma televisons I have seen. The screen is extremely sharp and Im pretty sure its close to High Definition. It also has very bright colours and can be very very bright at times. POWER AND PERFORMANCE Not only is this a superfast at running Mac OSX with its dual core processer and two gigs of ram I hear that it runs Microsoft Vista faster than an actual PC which is an acheviement in itself. I personally have spent many hours designing advertisments on this laptop using Adobe Creative Suite Master CS3 (which is a huge program) and it runs it with so much ease its fantastic for creativity and work. This is the ulitmate desktop replacement. I Liked this laptop so much I even borrowed one for awhile, so I removed it from its seat atop the display cabinet (dont worry we have two on display) and unpluged... Read review

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Advantages: Very comprehensive package
Disadvantages: Not easy for a beginner to use

...The Adobe stable has managed to do it again. In addition to the legendary Adobe Photoshop, which has emerged to become a standard tool in the armoury of graphicists the world over, Illustrator has also established itself as a tool with undoubtedable clout. Illustrator complements Photoshop in the same way that CorelDraw and Corel PhotoPaint complement each other, and used together they allow you to produce some very impressive graphics. As ever the installation process is easy, with all necessary add-ons and third party applications included on the CD. There is the usual standard multi-language support, and the familiar Adobe style interface, which is a dream for anyone even halfway familiar with another Adobe Product. It can even be used as a DTP package, although it lacks some of the layout features of Adobe Pagemaker 6... Read review

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Advantages: Adobe Users will love the interface
Disadvantages: None Adobe users will find thing hard at first

...Right, lets get straight to the point, If you are a Adobe fan then this is far better than Flash 4. On the otherhand, if you don't give a toss about the layout and can handle a different interface then Flash 4 (even flash 3) is far better and easier to use. Sorry Abobe but this one is a bit of a dud, the only real thing going for it is that if you already use adobe products you feel quite at home. The one annoying thing I found was that I spent 2 weeks with Go Live and then moved over to Flash and I reallised that sometimes too many options are a bad thing. The learning curve for Go Live is, like most of the Adobe Family resonably steap as Adobe exspect you to be an advanced user from the beginning. In this cae this is another of the PhotoShop vs Coral or Paintshop problems, if Go Live as easy to learn as Flash then they would have... Read review

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